Networks involve communication between various nodes in the network. Each node may have a message processor associated with it. Each message processor may be designed to handle data of a particular format. For instance, Infoset processors are designed to process data that is represented in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format. Binary processors, on the other hand, are not capable of processing Infoset data, but instead, process binary data, even though binary processors and Infoset processors exist at equivalent levels in the protocol stack.
There are presently a large number of Infoset processors, each able to communicate with each other. There are also a large number of binary processors, each able to communicate with each other. However, binary processors typically cannot communicate well, if at all, with Infoset processors.